Where we talk Brushes and loose ferrules.

Also – Merry Boxing Day madness shopping. I hope you find killer deals that make you happy.

For the Readers:

Hello and welcome to Art A&A #4. Today I’m going to field a question, an art question from Tom C. from Markham. And he says:

That his ferrules on his brushes [which is the metal part that holds the bristles onto the wooden part or plastic part] always gets loose and shakes around and eventually lets all the bristles fall out. Does he have to buy expensive brushes to stop that from happening?

…and I say no you do not!

The biggest reason that ferrules will become loose and crack or sorry, not crack, but get loose…well, some will crack – but get loose and shake around, is because you’re putting your brushes into water above the ferrule.

If you’re using wooden handled brushes, if you put them into water and the water touches the wood the water will seep into the feral and get into the wood, and expand the wood. The wood will expand the ferrule and when it dries out the wood will shrink and the ferrule will rattle and be loose and crappy. It will also likely split the varnish off the handle of your brush and make it really uncomfortable to hold and splintery.

I’ve done this too many many many brushes… and it’s because I’m not paying attention. When I’m painting in acrylics I’ll just throw them in the water knowing that they’re not going to get wrecked… [wrong], but I can wash them, you know, when I get around to it – knowing at least that the acrylic won’t dry up on the bristles.

But make sure that whatever water you are storing your brushes in, for any amount of time – like over an hour, is only up to the ferrule and does not touch the wood of the handle – this is bad bad bad…

Another hint is don’t spend too much money on acrylic brushes. Buy something that’s going to give you good results but doesn’t cost a lot of money. You don’t need sable, unless you want to pay that amount but it’s not necessary.

The reason that I don’t spend a lot of money on my acrylic brushes is because acrylic will eventually seep up into the ferrule, it will dry in the ferrule and it will spread your bristles apart, ruining your brushes. If you’re a very detail oriented acrylic painter, this is probably fine for you, you can probably get away with sable – you’re not gobbing on acrylics onto the bristles, you know it’s not being shoved up into your ferrule… things are probably good for you.

For the rest of us though, and generally for most painters in acrylic, buy good brushes but not expensive brushes. So experiment actually with with story name brands. I’m not going to mention any names, but they tend to be of good quality, but not expensive and they’re often on sale like 40 to 50% off….just saying.

Okay so that is your art tip today and what is this… it’s like just after Christmas so you know Merry Christmas-ish, to everyone. Oh, I just dated this podcast but that’s okay I will talk to guys next week thanks for listening. If you like this podcast please go over to iTunes and subscribe or go to iTunes and leave a nice comment or a nice rating we like nice ratings and comments ‘k thanks! See you next week.

Podcast #2 is up and in the feed pipe. I’m going to figure out this iTunes thing before the year is out. Oh yeah. In today’s podcast we talk about the fear of starting and being awkward. It gets better. I promise. Transcribed Wordy-Type Option: Hello and welcome to Art Answers & Ampersands. […]